A Novel Without a Name...a flood of memories. I’ll return to again.

Documentaries such as, "Ho Chi Minh: The Man Behind the Myth," the documentary instills the same sentiments as that of a textbook. However, the rhetorical strategy used here is one that is less monotonous, while still informative. A documentary is a valid source because it depicts its subject very well. While it lacks the personal connection that novels, such as Novel Without a Name have, it makes up with powerful imagery. Aspects that are particularly appealing are when viewing a documentary is the wealth of information that is divulged. In "Ho Chi Minh: The Man Behind the Myth," the documentary speaks that of his birth and his upbringing, to his involvement with the war. It is through the documentary that the viewer is able to gain a sense of Ho Chi Minh's class and the society that he grew up in. Furthermore, the viewer is able to extrapolate the identity of who Ho Chi Minh really was through the information that is provided. Documentaries offer this almost morbid insight as to what happened in history, without little emotion as possible.

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He is currently hard at work on a novel without a name.

Consider Hamlet as a sample subject. An encounter with his father’s ghost creates a disruption between the assumed past (his father died of natural causes) and the revealed past (his father was murdered by his brother): the revealed past quickly supplants the assumed past in Hamlet’s memory. The persistent question of Hamlet’s sanity is also a question of the stability of his memory; yet, his identity is not defined by memory. Nor is his identity determined by either volition or the degree to which the revealed past (memory) informs his decisions. His identity is defined as the totality of performed actions. If Hamlet concerns a human being at the apex of an existential crisis, vacillating between action and non-action, his identity for a large share of the play is non-action, impotence. For its inaccuracy, instability, and subjectivity, the memory cannot be the foremost indicator of identity. However, this is not an argument that memory plays no role in identity formation. Instead, to clarify, terminology must be bifurcated to accommodate these concepts: the sum of all completed actions can be termed realized (objective) identity while will and desire driving choice (often affected by memory) can be labeled as latent (subjective) identity. Latent and realized identity have substantial applications to Novel Without a Name, which will now be examined.

He is currently working on a novel without a name

In this particular moment, as chills run up his spine, Quan looses his ideology – the part of his identity that allowed the war to have significance, importance and reason in his view. In this moment he becomes a man without identity, a puppet of the war. This fragmentation and deconstruction of his identity ultimately shows the audience the consequences of war along with the inescapable traumas and loss of self that result from it. Thus, these examples show that postmodernism can certainly be connected to Vietnam War novels such as Novel Without a Name. Not only do postmodern literature and Vietnam War literature move to both destabilize some form of authority, ideology or universal belief; but they both also seem to employ similar ways in engaging the audience to adjust its perception and point of view. It is this process that ultimately allows the work to reach its goal.

A novel without a name is something to be there forever

Other aspects that are devoid in other texts, with the exception of those similar to Novel Without a Name, are symbolism and personification used to portray identity. Though much of the novel takes place in the jungle, which plays an integral part, almost as a character would, so too does the war, itself. The war seems to move about in almost beastlike fashion, with little regard for whom it "eats." Quan's soldiers become beasts themselves, killing because they like it, desecrating the bodies of their enemies. There is no meaning in the acts, and no redemption for their decisions. These are young men whose lives have but one purpose: kill. Huong writes that the soldier's dreams, love, and lives were all swallowed up by the mass propaganda machine of the communist powers. In a sense, Quan's soldiers becoming beasts serves as a macrocosm for the Vietnamese people. The war has shaped them into beasts and the Vietnamese people do not want Huong's novel to manifest itself into mainstream society and shape the way others view what the Vietnamese people may be like.

Novel Without a Name - AbeBooks

In the novella Novel Without a Name, by Duong Thu Huong, the novel is told from the North Vietnamese viewpoint. Already, there is a contrast between the content of this novel, than perhaps, the content of a textbook. Novel Without a Name uses the rhetorical strategy of appeal to emotion. A central theme that revolves throughout the novel is the act of defiance against oppression, whereas a textbook would be devoid of this. A textbook, such as In Search of Southeast Asia on Vietnam, will focus on statistics and is strictly informational; it does not favor one side or another. Further evidence of this is in the context of each source. If one were to take a look in In Search of Southeast Asia, one would see dates strewn about the pages of the textbook. The textbook focuses on the chronology of history and conveys no emotion; rather it just states the facts.

Novel Without a Name (Duong Thu Huong) - book review

This is by no means an extensive analysis of memory nor an all-encompassing analysis of the impact of memory in Novel Without a Name. This is merely a study of the correlation between memory and identity, introduction of the terms latent identity and realized identity, and the application of such terms on an individual and national level. The culmination of this study was meant to be an in-depth examination of the deleterious nature of a political-national identity as it relates to Novel Without a Name but it’s late and I’m sleepy.

Novel Without a Name Summary and ..

As I was reading through Novel Without A Name, I couldn’t help but see the similarities of Quan and a US Vietnam soldier. The disillusionment that Quan experienced seemed to be the same as a US soldier. The US soldier fighting in the Vietnam War has lost the support from back home, there are uncertain ideological motives, and there is the inevitable death. The US soldiers did not receive much support from the general population, the motives for the war were dubious, and many soldiers lost their lives in battle. Quan also underwent the same experiences. On his journey back home, he saw less and less support for the war by the people. By the end of the book, he is questioning the motives for the war and if there will ever be an end to it. Throughout the book, he sees death occur all around him, his brother, the deserter, his fellow comrades, and his childhood friends. Quan also is haunted by the loss of his loved ones back home. He inevitably loses all the ones he cares about due to the war. His lover is impregnated and then cast out by society, his brother dies in battle, and his father is a mere “ghost” and unattached to society due to the traumas he faced in war. These are the same things that most likely haunted many US soldiers during their time in Vietnam. Also, one of the reoccurring questions throughout the book was what were the soldiers to do after the war was over? This is another similarity that could be felt by the US soldiers as well. Quan no longer had a family or a wife/girlfriend to come home too. All he knew was war and how to survive. However, post-war survival was something he did not know how to handle. This is evident, because whenever this question was raised in the book, Quan never had an answer to it. In addition, soldiers who did not receive honorable recognition for their duty were cast out in their homes. Therefore, soldiers believed it to be better to stay in the war and fight than to return home with nothing to show for it; as was the case for Bien. The same unwelcoming sentiment could be felt for the US soldiers as well. For some of the soldiers, their return home was met with hostility and resentment from the society. They struggled to rebuild their lives after they returned home from the war. The book Novel Without A Name not only displays the hardships Vietnam soldiers endured, but can speak for soldiers worldwide.